


Once and Future

by sasha_b



Category: Dark Tower - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Arthurian, Extended Scene, Gen, day in the life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 21:50:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17434136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: This is set at the beginning of book four, Wizard and Glass, immediately following the Ka-Tet's escape from Blaine the Mono.





	Once and Future

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Edonohana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/gifts).



> This is set at the beginning of book four, Wizard and Glass, immediately following the Ka-Tet's escape from Blaine the Mono.

Stepping through the dust that coated every square inch of the Topeka train station, Jake carried Oy and tried to ignore the throbbing in his hand that had increased with each block they traversed. Blaine _was_ a pain, and yeah, that was the damn truth, but he’d been good for a few things. Jake shook his hand and kept going, his heart marching in time with his injury.

Roland lead, Jake was second, and Eddie and Susannah followed, talking quietly. All of them were peaked from reading the paper Jake’d found, and all of them were trying to understand exactly what was happening, in this _when_ they’d found themselves in. This when, that meant something was really wrong with the branch of the Beam they’d been following, and something was really wrong with the Tower, which made Jake more worried than he’d been over the course of every bit of hardship they’d been through.

He laughed bitterly at that, and waved Roland on when the gunslinger looked back at him questioningly.

Wind blew at them, feeding through the cracks in the warped walls of the station, and Jake found himself hurrying to be closer to Roland in his dirty, no color boots, the dead that surrounded them creepy in a way dead things were to young folk. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was happy to be holding Oy in his arms, the warm body of the bumbler comforting and heavy at once.

“Careful,” Roland’s voice said in his ear, and Jake looked up from contemplating Oy’s bright eyes in time to avoid crashing into a massive stack of paper that appeared in the gloom of the lofty building from out of –

“I haven’t seen this many books since school,” Susannah’s voice reached Jake. “I don’t think I saw this many books _in_ school.” Eddie’s answer forced a tired giggle from her, and Jake grinned blankly, the attempt and joviality in this place of death and sadness out of place, but understood. He wasn’t able to quite get there, though.

In front of him, the towers (towers, always) of things he’d almost smashed into appeared to be many, many paperbacks. Torn, some damp (he could smell the rot, which made him sadder), all moldering and so many he couldn’t imagine the amount. He made a loop around the piles, setting Oy down, and the bumbler followed at his heels as he looked at the makeshift fortress that someone had built with paper and cardboard. “Careful,” Roland warned again, but Jake reached out and touched –

One of the closest pillars of books surrendered to time, to heavy dust and gravity and Jake leaped back as it crashed around him, books flying, the smell of age and decay filling his nostrils and they all began to cough, the sound of the fall echoing like gunshot in the destroyed and empty station.

Roland cocked one eyebrow at Jake, and lifted the hem of his shirt, wiping dirt from the boy’s cheeks. “Watch yourself,” he admonished gently. “It will be alright,” he added, in a voice only for Jake that made surprising moisture spring to Jake’s eyes. He hastily bent to retrieve Oy, and tried to smile at Roland, but something sparkling in the dim close to his feet caught his gaze and he took his turn to cock his head and take the step that led him into the decimated pile of books that now lay scattered six ways to Hell.

One book lay open, its spine cracked, to a color picture that Jake recognized and he licked his lips and he allowed Oy to tuck into his shirt, the bumbler mumbling _'ake,_ and _’right_ as Jake lifted the book and smiled. 

Susannah and Eddie came closer to the man and boy, Eddie stepping gingerly around the books, and stood next to Roland, watching Jake examine what he’d picked up. The smile on the boy’s face made him look like a child, for the first time in a long time, and Susannah also found herself fighting back a rush of moisture to her eyes. He _was_ a child. This was awful, awful for all of them, and yet.

Her gaze at Eddie was a strange one, but Eddie touched her chin with his finger briefly, and yes, it was awful, but she couldn’t imagine wanting anything else. How horrible was that?

Her stomach twisted slightly, and she frowned even though she didn’t want to. “What is that, sugar?”

Jake’s smile spread as he absently ran a hand over Oy’s rough fur. A shaft of light broke through the darkness of the silent building, and he looked up, first staring at the ceiling and the tiny bit of sun, and then meeting the eyes of his friends.

“ ‘The sword lay heavy in his hands, but it was the weapon of the righteous, and Arthur knew it to be the thing that shaped his destiny, and he held aloft Excalibur, despite its weight and the burgeoning truth of the power the sword granted him that echoed in his mind.’ ”

Roland spoke first. “Arthur Eld.”

“Arthur, King of the Britons,” Susannah added. Eddie nodded. “The Once and Future.”

“Excalibur,” Jake said, and turned the book so they could all see the picture that was lit by the odd and (Jake thought without rolling his eyes) timely sun (Ka. Nothing surprised him now). 

“I used to love that story,” Susannah said, wistful. She missed a few things from her when. Books. Coffee. Chocolate. No talking trains. She bit her lip and moved her hand to the docker’s clutch she wore.

The prettily drawn picture was faded but still beautiful, and Jake took note that both Susannah and Eddie touched the butts of their guns, and Roland’s deeply lined forehead scrunched even more than Jake thought possible. The gunslinger touched the picture in the book, the sword held in the hand of a woman that couldn’t be seen, her arm extending from a lake that was serene and filled with smoothness that Jake could imagine seeing his own reflection in.

“’Calibur,” Oy said, and Jake rubbed his head, blinking at the bumbler, Roland taking the book from his hands. “We need to move on,” he said, scrubbing at his grizzled chin and then hair with his diminished fingers. “There are things here I – we shouldn’t – we need to go.” He turned, but Jake watched him look at the picture once more. “Ka,” he heard the man whisper, Roland’s face looking white and strange, and Jake followed him, the other two taking up the rear again, as they approached the dead _Exit_ sign that hung slightly askew above two broken wooden doors. Jake could see the sun and the dusky, dusty sight of the parking lot, cars and buses and more detritus filling it, and the sadness he’d felt when touching the old book filled him again, and his hand throbbed, and Oy licked his nose suddenly.

Roland shoved through the doors to the outside world of weird Topeka, but he set the book he’d been holding (The Acts of King Arthur And His Noble Knights, by someone called Jeremy Steinbeck) down before he exited the station.

Jake looked at the book that now sat on the ground, and then looked at Eddie and Susannah, who were watching Jake as well. He bit his lip.

Eddie opened his mouth.

“Don’t you say that K word, fool,” Detta Walker snapped, and Eddie’s mouth closed.

The remaining three Tet followed their Din outside, the wrongness of the Beam and in turn the Tower weighing on them more heavily, and the exhaustion from the trip they’d just had (not the fun kind, Eddie suddenly thought, his bleak smile stretching his shadowed face) the moment they left the station. The sun shone on silence and death and rot, and they looked to the left, and Eddie pointed at the beginnings of a degraded freeway on ramp. His mobile face twisted, the oddness of everything almost too much for him. The fact he found it easier to deal with, though, freaked him out, and he pinched his upper arm, hard.

“We need to find the Beam again,” Roland said suddenly. 

“I’m convinced,” Eddie said. “Come on, let’s get going. Where?” he asked Roland.

“The way we were going,” Roland said, as if that should have been obvious, and walked past Eddie in his dusty, broken boots, headed for the park across the way.

Jake let them all pass him, and he trailed sluggishly last, the book that had fallen to him for some reason ( _don’t say that damn K word again_ ricocheted through his pained head) was covered in dust again, quickly and quietly, the three tourists to Mid-World, now End-World, slowly forgetting the timing and auspiciousness of the appearance of that particular story.

*

The book was left on the ground in the station, and if the next pair of hands that picked it up was covered in black gloves and long and spindly, the book didn’t care.

“Death, gunslinger, but not for you,” the Man in Black whispered to himself, his giant grin stretching his hat shaded face, “son of Eld.”

Marten Broadcloak set the paper thing down, its old-as-time worn pages disappearing into dust as he stepped past it, following the sign to **Kansas Turnpike/Highway 70** , the sun having set, the silence of Topeka and the station almost covering the weird warble off in the distance he was just beginning to be able to hear.

~

**Author's Note:**

> All lines from Wizard and Glass belong to Stephen King, not me. The lines Jake reads from the book he finds were written by me, though.
> 
> I grew up loving John Steinbeck's Arthur a lot. I hope it's not an affront for me to borrow it for my purposes here (and to change his name a bit if only for the sake of _other worlds than these_ ).
> 
> So, these are some of my favorite books in the entire world, if not THE favorites. I am terrified to dip my toe in this universe, but love it so much, I wanted to try. I hope it's not awful and the characterizations are okay. I wanted to focus on Jake because I can feel him the easiest of the four, although Roland is Roland and I wish he didn't frighten me so much. :) I wanted to combine a few images of things that I love about these books and the King Arthur connection King included in this series, which made me love them even more. 
> 
> I obviously jacked the time line around for my story-telling purposes.
> 
> I hope the recipient enjoys this; you mentioned liking day in the life type things and I do too, and I am so appreciative to find this challenge kind of at the last minute. I've been struggling for years to write regularly and I hope the tone here is alright and things make sense. Happy reading and thank ya Sai to anyone who takes the time to read or comment.


End file.
